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Taco Cowboy writes with news that Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has reported to the FBI what he says is child pornography on Wikipedia, including links (redacted in the letter just linked) to entries about pedophilia and the genre of manga known as lolicon. The Register has up an article with some analysis, which mentions the opinion of at least one attorney whose "reading of the statute [requiring reporting of child porn images] is that it does apply to the Wikimedia Foundation." Update 20100414 5:00 GMT: Larry Sanger has posted a general reply in response to critics of his report to the FBI, in which he addresses the form, content, and motivation of his complaint, and offers some discussion of the relevant statute.

I have also since founded a more responsible project, Citizendium.org, and a teacher-edited non-profit directory of preK-12 educational videos, WatchKnow.org. Given my position of influence on matters related to Wikipedia, though I'm no longer associated with it, I feel I have a moral obligation to make the following report.

And I have the moral obligation to call you an opportunist, a shill and accuse you of mudraking to further your goals, Mister Sanger.

IMHO, there are fair use cases, e.g. for educational purposes, for the depiction of under-age sexuality, and if wikipedia doesn't fall under the umbrella of educational websites, I want some suggestions which website does. Hey, here in Germany even our cabinet members can show hard child pornograghic pictures in press conferences.

I have also since founded a more responsible project, Citizendium.org, and a teacher-edited non-profit directory of preK-12 educational videos, WatchKnow.org. Given my position of influence on matters related to Wikipedia, though I'm no longer associated with it, I feel I have a moral obligation to make the following report.

No, but it should NEVER be criminal to indulge and satisfy in whatever fetish you have so long as it is victimless and harmless to real people. Problem with hysterical pedohunters is that they don't care how their actions actually affect children. They are simply out for blood because it's their fetish, just like spanish inquisition was. The whole lolicon issue is one brilliant example of this - why should anyone care if someone masturbates to an image of a drawn child? If that gets his/her kicks so that the person can be a normal productive member of society, all's good, or at least should be good - no child is ever harmed, and the person has taken care of his/her urges. Yet modern pedohunters would love to string every single one of these people from a nearest flagpole inspite of them posing zero real threat to the children. At the same time, it's a known fact that those who are most anti-[issue] people tend to have extreme fetishes themselves, and typically perform and support witch-hunt style actions to cover their own "shameful" fetishes. Great example of this are some of the most hardline anti-gay activists who come out of the closet later in their lives.

Finally there is a lovely issue of children as sex objects which many love to deny ignoring the cold and brutal medical facts and often their own experiences as parents. Every parent knows that children discover their sexuality long, long before teenage starts. Explaining to your child why masturbating in public is inapproproate when he/she is around age of 4-5 is fairly typical - it's just that in "this is shameful" families it's done in such a traumatizing way for the child, that child gets too afraid to explore it any further before teenage hormones kick in. This is stuff that's widely known in medical community. In fact, there are medical books who mention sexuality in babies - for example babies "humping" their bed covers because it feels good. Before the concept of "morality" kicks in, children sexuality is typically ignored, and is considered "acceptable if shameful" by most.

You have to remember, if you're close to someone who is actually working with real pedophiles who have actual victims, your view is very strongly skewed, same as a police officer's who's working in slums. You tend to see the worst in people because you're used to seeing worst in people. Not because it's actually there.

Or more accurately, even if viewing child porn causes not additional harm to the child depicted if people in a position to create child porn are aware there is a demand for it - which they are if people are downloading material from web sites they control - then it's much more likely that they will invest the time and resources to set up a camera and get a child to act in front of it. In many cases, the child is far from a willing participant.

So, yes, it is possible to view child pornography and not hurt anyone. However, in aggregate, the viewing of child pornography creates a demand for new images, and the filling of this demand results in child abuse.

Remember that panhandling is illegal in many cities for exactly that reason.

No. Panhandling is illegal because most people find it annoying, and the panhandlers are in no position to find lawmakers to oppose making it illegal. Your idea that it "leads to mugging" is ridiculous.

Anyone that's ever walked around a decent size U.S. city has been approached for money before. This has happened to me perhaps a hundred times. I've yet to be mugged or even seriously threatened by a bum panhandling. Most of the

I think the OP was talking about fictional images (e.g., "lolicon")? Yes, for child pornography, there's the argument that even though the simply act of viewing or possession is a victimless crime, there are reasons to criminalise all of this. But none of this applies to people downloading fictional (especially unrealistic) images, even if they then go and download more of it.

I always find it hysterical when people toss around that ass backwards supply-and-demand argument.

Seriously. If someone genuinely wanted to prevent actual children from being actual victims of actual crimes to produce such images, the supply-and-demand argument mandates you must do the exact opposite. The supply-and-demand argument dictates that you would revoke any possible copyright in such images and that you would have law enforcement dump their vast collection of images free on the internet. You would

Let's say you take a picture of your 5 yo daughter, in your backyard pool. She's wearing a swimsuit. You publish the photo on a public site, say Flickr, with a license that allows non-commercial use of the photo.

Some weeks later, a policeman bursts in a suspected pedophile home. He finds that picture of your daughter printed, which the suspect has jerked off to (I really hope you don't really have a daughter at this point), along with others pictures of girls about the same age he obtained in a similar manner. Was there any crime commited?

Let's try something harder. Your 16 yo daughter take her own picture doing a sensual pose, perhaps showing her breasts, using her own cellphone. She passes this picture to a friend of hers using SMS/text messages, which passes to another friend, which then passes it to the same supected pedophile of the above case. Was there any crime commited? If so, by whom? What if the picture was taken by your daughter's 18 yo friend, with you daughter knowledge and consent?

Let's not split hairs. It is still the same ones taking pleasure from children and who will eventually cross barriers.

You have absolutely no proof that they will "eventually cross barriers".

Millions of people every year view porn, yet no one assumes that viewers of porn will inevitably rape someone. So why would you assume that to be the case of pedophiles? In fact, I would be very surprised if the opposite weren't, in fact, true.

but by allowing lolicon and similar images to become acceptable I feel as if an important social barrier may have been breeched.

So you support that all images of distasteful things be banned - whether newsworthy (e.g., people being killed in war, to use a recent example), to fictional (violence and rape scenes in films) to unrealistic (cartoons that often show unrealistic violence)? Or is there something special about something that appears to unrealistically depict a 17 year old?

On that note, I'm curious what these images are supposed to be. The image on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon [wikipedia.org] is surely not anything that would be considered "child" pornography, even in countries that have batshit laws against fictional images? Even if that was a real image with, you know, actual children, it wouldn't be child porn - unless you're going to say that nappy adverts be illegal...

Is there a stack of explicit sexual images of cartoon characters depicted as under 18? I'm scared to go looking myself, since as of April 2010 in the UK I'd now be a sex offender facing three years in prison if I stumbled across one.

In Japan, the age of consent is 16, not 18. Also, I'm willing to bet that information is added during the translation/localization phase, because the Japanese government doesn't view lolicon as a crime, because it doesn't actually involve minors.

by allowing lolicon and similar images to become acceptable I feel as if an important social barrier may have been breeched.

And that may be a good thing. Right now pedophilia is anathema. Anything related to the topic is considered so vile that even thinking about the topic itself is dirty. You don't get sensible approaches with that kind of atmosphere.

What would happen if some politician came up with the idea of pedophile support networks and state-funded counseling? An instant career end, that's what would happen. Because pedophilia and everything remotely associated with it is EVIL EVIL EVIL any nuanced approach to the topic is seen as insufficiently anti-pedophile which is the same as pro-pedophile, thus you're unfit for any office anywhere if you don't demonize pedophiles enough.
Progress can't be made if zealotry is the norm.

Now what if drawn child pornography does get some mindshare? People might start to wonder whether victimless* CP is really just as bad as regular CP**. And then they wonder whether the current laws are actually to the benefit of the people. And when we have people wondering whether a picture of Bart Simpson naked really warrants a prison term and an entry in the sexual offender database we're a big step closer to them actually bothering to question other aspects of current policy.

* Yes, we can't prove that a certain artist doesn't use actual children/CP as source material. Yet. We regularly catch companies doing bad things, though, so spot checks etc. can help. Requiring drawn CP creators to submit to random inspections (otherwise not getting admitted into the market) should keep the incidence of abusive drawn CP hitting the market low. And I do expect that the black market would take a large hit if a perfectly legal white market existed.

** The usual argument is that "all child porn turns people into pedophiles". So far I haven't seen any solid scientific support for that hypothesis. There are other hypotheses like "drawn CP allows pedophiles to let off steam without a child getting involved" which are equally unsubstantiated, seem equally sensible to a layman and make it seem a good idea to actually try and find out what is true.
Right now we can't even tell whether drawn CP is good or bad beyond resorting to truthiness.

** The usual argument is that "all child porn turns people into pedophiles". So far I haven't seen any solid scientific support for that hypothesis. There are other hypotheses like "drawn CP allows pedophiles to let off steam without a child getting involved" which are equally unsubstantiated, seem equally sensible to a layman and make it seem a good idea to actually try and find out what is true.

Good luck getting funding for THAT study. As someone else said (to borrow his words), the whole subject area is "EVIL, EVIL, EVIL" to many, who would rather use a broad brush to paint generalities and condemnation rather than actually study the matter and perhaps seek to understand the why of how such an interest develops, and possibly develop strategies for prevention and treatment. It's SOOO much easier just to write pedos off as sub-human monsters and treat them as such.

I think the more hysterical, over-the-top anti-pedos might fear that such a study WOULD show that so-called "virtual kiddie porn" DOES act as a "safety valve," more often preventing such an interest from escalating to harming or exploiting actual children. I don't know if that is true, but a study showing it to be thus would take some of the wind out of their sails.

Or not. Hell, plenty of studies show that abstinence-based sex education does absolutely nothing in the long run to prevent teens from having sex, but that hasn't quieted the naysayers. A similar mentality keeps the War on Drugs chugging along when it does little to actually curb drug use, whether habitual or recreational. Remember that most of the "antis" in these areas have a strong religious bent, and will easily ignore or reject practical solutions in favor of simple condemnation and prohibition because "God says it's wrong" requires so much less actual thought.

Would you rather have your children around a pedophile that has an outlet or one that doesn't?

I REALLY hate false choice [wikipedia.org] scenarios. I, of course, would rather have my children not be around ANY pedophile.

Your question also suggests that if someone has child porn they will not become a predator. Many of the pedophiles arrested had collections of child porn or erotica [trutv.com]. Many studies have suggested this not to be the case with male->female rape. Example. [findarticles.com]

Many of the pedophiles arrested had collections of child porn or erotica.

And 100% of them had, at some point in their life, taken dihydrogen monoxide. The more relevant question is how many of those who have erotica collections (or have drunk H2O, or whatever) have done something arrest-worthy? (Other than having the collection itself.)

Do you have any idea how many people read murder mysteries? Are there really that many potential murderers out there? (Of course there's a broad spectrum between reading Agatha Christie and watching snuff films, just as there is between reading Nabokov and collecting porn photos, but the point remains.)

Unfortunately, pedos don't wear a tag. They're not labeled. They don't come with warning stickers akin to "keep out of reach of children under 12" or something like that. The world does not bend the the sticker-craze of the US. So saying "I'd rather not live next to a pedo" isn't working out. They don't (for good reason, as you may be able to imagine) don't wear it on their sleeve.

Your example of pedos arrested for rape and then being child porn (drawn or real, you left it open, but let's assume we're talking about CP that came from the crayon instead of a camera) smell a bit like an argument often used when run amok and then finding shooter games on their PC. And the logic instilled in people like Mr. Thompson and his cronies that this is some sort of indicator of a shootist. Having FPS games -> some crazy gunman in the making. Having pencil CP on PC -> some pedo rapist in the making. Now, I tend to be a person that goes by the law of similarities when he cannot relate to the topic at hand, and this really seems like where the law of similarities could apply. I play FPS games. I still don't have the urge to go out there and go on a killing spree. Likewise, I can easily imagine how someone who hoards lolicon isn't interested in raping real kids. VR is one thing, RL another.

So, sorry, no sale. Unless you have better examples, like, say, that someone who has (pencil) CP on his computer at least significantly tends to become a rapist, we needn't continue the talking.

First of all, what very few of the commenters (at least the first commenters) noticed was that the statute I cited, 18 U.S.C. 1466A, has the following title: "Obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children." It specifically states: "Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly produces, distributes, receives, or possesses with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that..."

That's drawings, cartoons, sculptures, and paintings. "Visual depictions of any kind." Many people who criticized my message to the FBI really seem to have a problem with the law, which I find interesting.

Anyway, I now realize with regret that "child pornography" was probably the wrong word to use. I didn't realize that it would be so misleading. I thought that "obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children" (the title of the statute) was just what we mean when we say "child pornography." It didn't occur to me until afterward that many people restrict "child pornography" to mean photographs of real children. If I had realized this sooner, I would have used "depictions of child sexual abuse" instead.

So, why did I report Wikimedia to the FBI? First some background. I am broadly a libertarian, but I am also a sincere moralist (as opposed to a cynical amoralist). Libertarianism and moralism are not--of course--contradictory. Being a libertarian, I think we have the right to do a lot of things, including a lot of things that broadly coarsen society; that's the price we pay for freedom. But, just as the law provides for, I do draw one line when it comes to photographs, or even merely realistic depictions, of child sexual abuse. Most sane libertarians recognize that some speech should be restricted by the force of law--the hackneyed examples are shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, perjury, and libel. But for me, depictions of child sexual abuse are another. I respect the opinion of those who have a principled disagreement with me when it comes to depictions of child sexual abuse. But pretending that it's just obvious, even for libertarians, that we have a right to publish such depictions is simply wrong, in my opinion.

Regarding my motives, yes, I thought I was doing my civic duty, one that I didn't really want to do, but which I felt I ought to do. Partly this was because the statute in question required me to make the report if I thought the statute applied (and it seems to me it does--those drawings sure look like obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children to me). But partly also it was because I think that this sort of thing--including some pictures of children being out-and-out raped--is completely wrong, and should not be allowed in a civilized society. Call this censorship if you like, but I don't really think you have a constitutional right to publish and consume realistic drawings of child rape and molestation.

But what outcome am I aiming at? Contrary to the insinuations of some, I have no interest in trying to get Wikimedia shut down; that would be unnecessary, and I doubt it would happen as a result of the violation of the statute. But I think and hope it may cause pressure on Wikimedia from law enforcement, politicians, and the general public to eliminate this sort of content. I also hope that Wikimedia will be persuaded, or if necessary forced, to label its "adult" content as such in a consistent and reliable way, so that it can be easily filtered by school system filters. This would be a win-win, because then Wikipedia would be used in more schools--something I don't at all oppose, except for all the grossly inappropriate material for school children--and, when used in schools, children would be less likely to find content that their parents and teachers regard as grossly inappropriate for their age.

I know that in our cynical world, a lot of people will have trouble believing t

It depends on your definition of child porn I guess, but the picture of a girl sucking someones dick sure does look like child porn to me. Or didn't you know that cartoons are banned as well? It's not about the children, it's about enforcing societies moral standards.

If the category hadn't been "pedophilia" would you still have assumed it was child pornography? The girl appears to me to be at least a teenager, but beyond that she could be 14 or 20 (or younger or older). Is it child pornography if the artist conceived of her as 13 or if I did? At what point does child pornography become a thought crime?

If the category hadn't been "pedophilia" would you still have assumed it was child pornography? The girl appears to me to be at least a teenager, but beyond that she could be 14 or 20 (or younger or older). Is it child pornography if the artist conceived of her as 13 or if I did? At what point does child pornography become a thought crime?

In Germany we recently got an "appearance pornography" law that says, if the depicted woman LOOKS younger than 18, it's illegal.

If I recall correctly, it's never a thought crime. Child pornography (that is, pictures of actual children engaging in sexual acts) is illegal not because the content is objectionable, but rather because its very existence requires a crime to be committed. New York v. Feber [wikipedia.org] concluded that the distribution of visual depictions of children engaged in sexual activity is intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of children and that since the governm

Child pornography (that is, pictures of actual children engaging in sexual acts) is illegal not because the content is objectionable, but rather because its very existence requires a crime to be committed.

Child pornography (that is, pictures of actual children engaging in sexual acts) is illegal not because the content is objectionable, but rather because its very existence requires a crime to be committed.

That was true, until children started taking pictures of themselves engaging in sexual acts. Now the act itself is not a crime, but taking pictures is.

Yes, but just try to apply the moral standards of say Germany or Holland over here in North America. They seem to be much better adjusted about human sexuality over in Europe. In North America (Canada/US) we are positively out to lunch about sexuality, and completely accepting of violence.Its okay for a child to watch someone get murdered on TV, but considered completely unacceptable if they should see a naked breast - let alone a naked human body.I recall a woman in a local coffee shop, unobtrusively deciding to breastfeed her baby - and some American tourists got up and complained to the management - even though she was not in their view unless they strained to look. I was shocked anyone would object to breastfeeding, not that she was doing it (what could be more natural?).I think our whole western culture has gotten so grossly twisted up over issues of sexuality that it gives rise to a lot of our problems. Granted there has to be some limits - Pedophilia is a great example, completely unacceptable - but we seem intent on enforcing limits that are very very extreme in a lot of cases, and yet, as I said above, we gloss over violence in film and television and accept it as perfectly natural and acceptable.Christianity is at the heart of the matter in my opinion. Our currently accepted moral standards are based on a religion that most of us ostensibly Christian people pay no heed to.

The great thing about (moral) standards is that there are so many to choose from.

... but only MY religion/race/communities moral righteousness are the divine/correct ones. And since we have the reins of power, thou shalt yield to our moral will come law of the land./sarcasm.
As the thorough research of Bob Altemeyer discovered:

What makes authoritarian followers? Altemeyer suggests that the “social learning model of aggression” explains authoritarian aggression in high RWAs. The model is basically fear plus a trigger, in this case self-righteousness.

Thus in the experiments done on this subject, if you know how highly people scored on the Dangerous World scale, and if you know how self-righteous they are,you can explain rather well the homophobia of authoritarian followers, their heavy-handedness in sentencing criminals, their prejudices against racial and ethnic minorities, why they are so mean-spirited toward those who have erred and suffered, and their readiness to join posses to ride down Communists, radicals, or whomever. (p. 57)

He also offers a personal-development model of overall high-RWA characteristics. “I have discovered in my investigations that, by and large, high RWA students
had simply missed many of the experiences that might have lowered their
authoritarianism” (p. 61). Altemeyer doesn’t rule out a genetic component to being a high RWA, but he suggests that life experiences that reinforce the correctness of authority and offer few chances to question received truth are responsible for the development of high RWA characteristics.

Some characteristics of high RWAs. Altemeyer has found that people who score high on the RWA scale tend to also have the following characteristics:

1. Illogical Thinking
2. Highly Compartmentalized Minds
3. Double Standards
4. Hypocrisy
5. Blindness to Themselves
6. A Profound Ethnocentrism (“Authoritarian followers are highly suspicious of their many out-groups; but they are credulous to the point of self-delusion when it comes to their in-groups.” p. 90)
7. Dogmatism: The Authoritarian’s Last Ditch Defense

Right-wing authoritarianism and religion.

The first thing you need to know about religious fundamentalists, in case you haven’t inferred it already, is that they usually score very highly on the RWA scale. A solid majority of them are authoritarian followers. (p.111)

Altemeyer sees religious fundamentalism as “a template for prejudice,” and not surprisingly, fundamentalists exhibit the same kinds of cognitive and ethical problems as high RWAs — a disregard of standards of reasoning and evidence, mental compartmentalization, hypocrisy, dogmatism, etc. This chapter is where the careful groundwork of earlier chapters really pays off — Altemeyer makes a convincing case that religious fundamentalism feeds its followers right-wing authoritarian attitudes.

1) Started with narcs looking for dealers.2) If it was good hunting dealers, wasn't it good hunting users?3) If undercover worked so well for drugs, why not expand it to other areas like burglary and car theft rings?

I wonder whether it was prostitution where the line was first crossed into temptation:

4) Why should we spend time busting prostitutes when we can pose as prostitutes and bust clients?5) Why not set up our own fencing operations to catch burglars?6) Why not set up our own kiddie porn sites? We can offer genuine confiscated kiddie porn either as downloads or send them by post for extra client criminality.7) But that's so passive. Why not pose _as_ kids and troll for child molesters?

I'm sure in all these cases officers can come up with examples of "good work" where they imprisoned repeat offenders. But from a sociological viewpoint, America has become a very strange place where it is the government's job to entice "those so inclined" into crime. Do we have any idea of the cultural fallout from this shift and can it casually be assumed to be all good?

First of all, thank you for calling me a authoritarian pig. It's always good to have a friend that knows you better than you know your self.

Sorry, but as a disinterested third party, I have to say that the position you just advocated kinda does make you an authoritarian pig:

That way there will be no discussion in court about the images being real or not.

In general, speaking positively of rules which ban the introduction of relevant, defendant-exonerating evidence in court, as opposed to mentioning it only as a last resort, means bad things about your commitment to having a free society.

If that also means obviously drawn child porn is illegal, that is fine with me. Everybody that needs images of children of nay kind to fap should have their heads examined.

Then again, looking for the intention behind the words is kind of silly if you just go and state your authoritarian prejudices explicitly.

Now, I don't necessarily disagree that, as a matter of necessity, some provision may need to be made for the criminalization of photorealistic 3D renderings. However, that isn't something to be happy about - it's a very bad thing. The only legitimate reason for banning child porn is protecting children from being exploited in its production. Take that away, and all you have is totalitarian moralism.

Yes, Wikipedia seems to indeed have a category for pedophilia-related articles, describing such things as the Catholic scandal, child grooming, various kidnapping cases and related stuff. I'm a bit unsure what makes this "child pornography" - does Mr. Sanger perhaps become turned on reading about the activities of less savory Catholic priests? Dunno what images he's referring to, either - the only ones I found were photographs of Greek vases. As for "lolicon", AFAIK it's legal in most countries due to it being cartoon not related to real people in any way.

Perhaps this case itself should be reported under pedophile hysteria [telegraph.co.uk], or, more cynically, barratry [wikipedia.org].

Child beauty pageants are a wholesome part of American life that allows mothers to vicariously relive an idealized childhood by exploiting their daughters by making their kid into child sized versions of themselves but with mature overtones that they wished they would have understood when they were that age. It's as American as apple pie.

But drawing pictures of a fictional character dressed up like that is EVIL! IMMORAL! COMMUNIST!

Child beauty pageants and child porn hysteria are two sides of the same coin; namely, the sexualisations of children and the sale of it for profit. And yes, I mean the "hysteria" is the sale of child sex for profit.

In both cases, business are selling images and/or stories of children to people hungry for them. Those involved will strenuously and vigorously deny this, but you need only to look at child pageant photographs or read pedophile/child porn news stories to see what is going on. The very people who howl loudest about child porn are the very same who greedily devour every morsel or every story about that same topic. It Freudianism on a sociological level and it stinks to high heaven.

These people are inexorably eroding free society as we know it; and we're letting them.

Have you seen the famous "wikipedia lolicon" image? It's completely tame, especially when you compare it to some of the graphic images of cancer, surgically removed breast ducts etc, that you can see on some wikipedia pages. This is a non-issue.

For reasons totally unrelated to the (unsubstantiated) rumors that I am deeply bitter that no one has even heard of my self-evidently superior encyclopedia, Citizendium [citizendium.org], I have discovered that it is my solemn duty under Federal law to attempt to have Wikipedia's servers seized by the FBI, thus inevitably thrusting the 121 properly expert-approved articles of Citizendium back into the spotlight where they bel--ah--I mean, thus saving...the children...from Jimbo.

First of all, it doesn't inspire any level of confidence or conviction when the first paragraph of a letter, presumably about bad bad child porn on Wikipedia, is prefaced with what reads like the preamble on a CV. Citizendiwhat? Sorry you ditched on WP and failed to replicate its success, but trying to get the website shut down by pandering to think-of-the-children reactionaries is hardly an act of good faith or legitimate citizen concern. Sanger, how come you know so much about the pedophilia content at Wikimedia anyway?

Secondly, if one does visit the categories of which Sanger speaks, (not hard to figure out btw, in spite of link removals) all you see are A) historic pornographic cartoons, and B) Japanese pornographic cartoons. Even if one were to take the charges of child porn seriously, they are strictly limited to works of art, as in, not real people. I suggest that federal law enforcement should find much more pressing cases to deal with. If they have the time to perform an investigation over cartoon tits, they are overbudgeted.

Some things probably shouldn't be made more acceptable, but that excuse has been used to repeatedly to repress expression & whole groups of people(e.g. African Americans, Gays, Women, etc...)

"Child porn" and the "think of the children mentality is a slippery slope. We already have minors going to jail due to having consensual sex with each other. We have girls being charged with possession & distribution of child-porn for taking pictures of their own naked bodies and sending it to boyfriends, who are then also charged with possession of child porn themselves. Would you view the famous paintings or statues of Cherubs child porn? A lot of parents take pics of their kids growing up, sometimes kids run around naked or maybe it's their first bath, or potty training or something innocent such as that, could that be considered child porn?

There should be limits, but sometimes it can become a crazy witch hunt & used as an excuse to drum up fear or to manipulate sheeple. If someone is being exploited or harmed, that is definitely wrong. However, there are many imaginary images out there depicting many illegal things... Should we ban images that show drug use? Images that simulate murder? Images that simulate sodomy? Certainly we don't want drug use or murder to be more common, thus any depiction of it should be banned... Right? That'll solve all murders & drug use. No instead TV & movies are rife with murder & show drug use all the time, nor do I really think there is anything terribly wrong with that as these things are part of life, but so is sex. The USA has extreme hang-ups about sex and it just shows in how they prosecute child-porn, teenage sexual activity & terrible sex-ed.

Lolicon itself is a bit tongue-in-cheek usually with very cute characters who are slanted with a sexual side. One could draw parallels to how the USA has beauty pageants for 5 & 6 year olds, yet we are not running out prosecuting these parents for sexually exploiting their children, though in that case actual children are on display and probably being exploited by their overbearing parents, versus zero exploitation going on in an imaginary image.

This is an example of what I believe is wrong with government censorship. I don't know how people get the idea that the web should be a safe place where you can click on any link and go to any site and never have the chance to be offended. The internet and the web, IMHO, should be a place where all information can be exchanged freely between all parties. There are plenty of things on the internet that I find quite disturbing. If you don't want to be offended, don't go there. If you don't trust the sites, don't click on the link. Wikipedia is no exception. I personally don't find it acceptable for children to browse unsupervised, but it isn't mine or the government's decision to make. On the other hand, don't be surprised if the government uses that free information to track down people who commit crimes.

The big problem that I have here is that we are using the government to legislate morality. Not only is that not their job, but they are really bad at it even if it were. So, unless we are willing to stone people for adultery we should let them make their own moral choices.

Just to clarify, I'm in no way in favor of allowing people to harm children. In those cases where actual children are hurt I have no problem hunting down those people. I just don't want to see a service shut down because somebody didn't like a drawing they had.

You have to remember, the tricky thing about morals is that 'mine are always right'. Almost every sociology 101 course has to devote a huge amount of time just getting people to admit their own ethnocentrism, much less acknowledge that other people have values that are right for their culture. However, it is the government's job to legislate, if not morality, socially agreed norms. One could even say that legislation against murder is a moral legislation, if someone wanted to carry the argument that far. An

I've talked to people who honestly believe that it's right that teenage girls should be arrested, sent to prison and put on the sex offenders register for life because they took photos of themselves with their phone cameras.The reason: "What if a pedophile got hold of the images..." "...internet..." "...pedophiles..." "zzzt zt" *brain shorts out*They honestly believe the possibility of a pedo getting hold of a phone cam picture of you is more h

I don't know how people get the idea that the web should be a safe place where you can click on any link and go to any site and never have the chance to be offended.

...which is, in the end, why things like the proposed.xxx TLD are fundamentally flawed. What the censors consider objectionable is a constantly moving target: once they've successfully banned or contained x, then they'll go after x-1. A better alternative would be a.beige TLD, where the censors can put content they consider acceptable, and people who don't care for freedom of speech can limit their browsers to that domain.

And to take this post squarely back on topic, yes, Larry Sanger is a vindictive litt

There are 2 different issues here. One is whether the government's definition of child porn makes sense. Personally I think that including drawings makes it unreasonable. The second is whether the wikipedia images meet the government's definition - I think they probably do.

The way to change the first problem is through political action / voting. If you think it is unreasonable to send someone to prison for looking at a DRAWING of a naked child, write your congress person.

As ValleyWag put it (as quoted by Mashable):...they could pass the time reading a 2000 work by Möller. Its German title is "Kinder sind Pornos," which means "Children are pornography." Even in Google's rough translation, the gist [of the paper, not of the title] is clear enough: Möller argues that nonviolent child pornography does no harm. He relates the frosty reception he received when he put forth this view at a conference in Nuremberg in 2000.

Since Mashable quoted Valleywag who gave us the gist of a machine generated translation of a 10 year old article originally in German, it's completely obvious. Especially when the translation is so clear:

It is in the rest of the Judgement quoted abuse therapist without recognizable to its methodology would be a critical distance.

Just try to argue with that. You can't. Or this one:

"The opinion that children have sexuality and can enjoy this too, should / should not be distributed," says Schweer further.That this is not an opinion, but a scientific fact that is not doubted by many self-proclaimed protectors children, he is silent.

He's been trying to get his pet project going for years, and people demonstrated repeatedly that nobody really cares about his vision.

Nupedia went nowhere and died after having produced 24 approved articles after 3 years. Then in 2006 he started Citizendium with great fanfare, and in those 4 years it managed to produce 121 approved articles.

So it seems that if he can't compete, he'll try killing Wikipedia the legal way. Maybe then some of the contributors will switch to Citizendium. On my part, I don't see how would that work for him, because I'd just really hate his guts and never touch anything related to him after that.

Perhaps a bit offtopic, but noteworthy: The German Wikipedia recently had a vulva image on the main page, as part of "today's article". The article snippet with the image [wikipedia.org] (NSFW!).

This resulted in many complaints and a discussion about morals and Wikipedia. The rationale was that the German article "Vulva [wikipedia.org]" is featured and purely educational - it has nothing to do with erotics or pornography. Here [wikipedia.org] is a 0.5MB talk page about the incident.(Posting as a AC, already spent mod points here)

I really don't get this obsession about sex. Everyone[1] does it, everyone has the appropriate organs, and it's definitely a prerequisite of you being alive. Most people have even seen naked children. What's the problem?

I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather have pedophiles jerking off to Wikipedia than rape some kid. Ditto for child porn[2]. Give them all the animations and drawings they want, so they don't get stupid ideas every time they drive past a playground.

[1] statistically speaking. Cue the Slashdot jokes.[2] actual children being molested is out of the question, of course

Actually I think it's better they used something away from the "Playboy" look since some women think they are abnormal when they have genitals different to a pencil mark on a barbie doll. In some places women even get reconstructive plastic surgery done or just bits snipped off to fit that body image.

Foot binding, neck elongation, excision, circumcision, stretching out your earlobes, those are all mutilations. And when all your peers have been mutilated in the same way, you're very happy to fit in.

Well, technically (I've heard) some men do try to regrow their foreskin, but let's say that's not the same (because, really, it isn't).

Hey, man, we have a genuine disagreement over what it means to mutilate a body, and I doubt we will find common ground. Let's just disagree. But I am genuinely curious about where you draw the line. Seriously. Do you consider ear piercing to be mutilation? or is it not because, given enough time, the hole will grow together? If science invented a way to grow together larger

How is a woman having her genitals mutilated "fixing up bits" exactly? We aren't talking about women that, for example, have a labia so long as it is causing her pain, we are talking about women thinking they have to get chopped on, and risk all kinds of complications and possible infection, all so they can look like a 12 year old girl.

Personally I'm sick of this "all women should look like Barbie dolls" crap. I'm lucky enough to have a woman with a full beautiful labia, yet it took me ages to convince her to make love with the lights on because all this Barbie doll crap had drilled into her head that having a normal labia made her somehow ugly. Nothing could be further from the truth yet it is one more thing that makes nice normal women feel inferior, just like we have women getting balloons strapped to their chests if it isn't what the media considers a "good size" or starving/making themselves sick if they dare to gain a pound. Unless the labia is causing her real physical problems it is just so much horseshit.

As for TFA, Good Lord, can we pleeease stop the "eek! There's pedo!" bogeyman bullshit? All this crap ends up doing is throwing sanity right out the window and turning our laws into sick jokes. As it is now it is becoming another Red Scare, with kids being labeled child pornographers for taking a video of themselves or guys getting thrown into prison for fricking cartoons. Get real! Instead of looking for bogeymen on every webpage, why not...ohh I don't know...actually go after those molesting kids! How about that? The fact that anyone can seriously say Wikipedia might be distributing child porn for something like 70s album covers (BTW anybody with the Blind Faith album should just turn themselves in right now) or stupid Loli cartoons shows how far down the wrong path we've gone already.

Sexuality is in the eye of the beholder, and some people love the smell of napalm in the morning. If some people get their jollies watching children get raped, as our esteemed moral guardians seem to be implying, then why wouldn't they enjoy watching those same children get bombarded with napalm?

Just imagine it's an adult woman instead, and ask yourself: would no one get turned on by the hypothethical image?

If you still insist this would not happen, why don't you read slashdot at -1 for a while.

I _do_ read slashdot at -1. The garbage is very easy to ignore. I would simply rather have the chance to make up my own mind than have someone decide for me what is worth reading and what isn't. Of course it takes more time to sort through the pile of crap - but then again anything worthwhile always has some form of cost associated with it.